Tuesday, March 13, 2012

For interest

A propos the discussion on mine protected vehicles and the Warrior, I happened (as one does) upon this superb collection of pictures of early Rhodesian mine-protected vehicles.

The two shown (above and below) are of the Cougar – front and side views – illustrating perfectly the v-shaped conformation. It also shows how the designers put distance between the protected cell and the front wheels, as the expected point of impact.

You can also see very clearly, that the parts external to the protected cell are designed to be blown off, thereby absorbing energy from the blast. And thus, with the armour (which is relatively thin) we see four of the five principles of mine protection being used. And this was in 1975 … nearly 40 years ago.

Yet, despite decades of experience, this (pictured above) is what BAE Systems would rather sell. From the contractors' point of view, the problem with the extremely effective range of mine protected vehicles is that they are too cheap. From the crunchie point of view, they look too much like boring old trucks. They want to go to their deaths in something "cool".

The only people who don't get a look in, of course, are the taxpayers. We get hit both ways, paying for the expensive toys and then the funerals.